I've been reminded of yet another pet peeve of mine -- sites that aren't up front about shipping costs.Why should a shopper have to proceed through the checkout flow to find out how much shipping costs are on a site?

And from a retailer point of view, the forced partial checkout to view shipping costs would count as an "abandoned shopping cart" in their analytics reports.

I was on a website that sold batteries the other day and it wanted me to fill in my shipping, billing, and payment information before it would tell me what the shipping costs would be. I chose not to go through the process for 3 reasons - privacy, security, and all the extra typing when I wasn't sure I wanted to register or buy from this site yet.

Here are two examples where the site helps a shopper understand the shipping costs early in the browse/buy cycle.

The first example is from L.L.Bean where an estimated shipping charge is shown as the item is added to the Shopping Bag.

The second example is from TigerDirect.ca where a shopper can enter their Postal Code to get an estimate of shipping costs while viewing the Shopping Cart.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion - Have a static "Shipping Costs" page that outlines where the store will ship to, what shipping modes are offered, and what the general shipping charges are. Also, have the ability to enter a Postal Code / Zip Code when viewing the Shopping Cart to see what the estimated Shipping Cost will be.

As a shopper, the Amazon Marketplace is great as I have access to a wider set of products with Amazon standing behind the orders in terms of customer service. Tracking inventory and orders though must be more challenging for Amazon than just fulfilling their own inventory. Case in point -- my son has just got excited about Transformers Animated, which came out in the 2008 timeframe and thus related merchandise is hard to find. I ordered a "Pack of 4" Transformers Animated band-aids from an Amazon marketplace vendor, whose inventory was being "Fulfilled by Amazon" and thus was eligible for free shipping with Amazon Prime (of which I am a member). I received only 1 box of band-aids instead of 4 and I called Amazon customer service. They pro-rated my refund since I received only 1 of the 4 boxes that I was supposed to receive. I noticed on the web site that there were 5 more in stock -- I kindly suggested to the customer service representative that they check those 5 to see if they are sitting in inventory as 1, or as packages of 4. Because if they are sitting in inventory incorrectly they could have 5 more orders fulfilled the same way with 5 more customers' children upset not having a Transformers Animated band-aid to cover a boo-boo. The customer service representative said they did not have the inventory and could not check it. Hmmm. What does it mean to be "Fulfilled by Amazon"? At least I tried to help the next 5 customers who purchased the same product.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion

Providing a marketplace for shoppers puts additional onus and burden on the marketplace provider to make sure inventory and fulfillment go smoothly and to have operational processes in place to review and correct issues. As a marketplace provider, are you actually making money from these additional orders, or are you losing money due to customer service representatives needing to be involved in the management of the orders?

"Free Shipping" is one of the most effective online shopping incentives and many shoppers wait for sites to offer free shipping during the Christmas shopping season. In a recent purchase with Entertainment Earth on the day after Christmas (Boxing Day in Canada), they offered "Free Shipping" on orders over $100. When I was on the "Review Order" page and I looked at the shipping total, I still saw "Super Saver - Fedex Smartpost via USPS = $15.95". I was momentarily confused -- had I read the free shipping offer wrong? Did I not add enough items to the cart to qualify? It took me more than a little while to see the line that had been added to the end of the cart showing a "Promotional Shipping Rebate Coupon of $15.95", which effectively brought shipping down to $0. The Product Subtotal was adjusted down by $15.95 and when added to the Shipping of $15.95, the Grand Total was correct, but I had to do the math to confirm it.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion - "Free Shipping" is an effective conversion incentive and marketers can tweak the offering threshold to optimize sales. e.g. free shipping on orders above $29 or free shipping on orders above $49 or etc. But if you're going to offer "Free Shipping" show the Shipping as $0 so the customer sees that $0, or at least show a Shipping Subtotal minus a Shipping Discount and a Shipping Total of $0.

Recently, my wife tried to order an (in-stock) item from the Amazon Marketplace on two occasions and both Marketplace vendors ended up not being able to ship the product. The first time, the selected Marketplace vendor had to refund the order amount when they found out that they didn't actually have the item on-hand to ship (after charging our credit card) -- the reason gave was "could not ship".

Hello,

We're writing to let you know we processed your refund of $66.96 for your Order xxx from Altman Luggage Co..

My wife then ordered the item from another Marketplace vendor that indicated they had the item in stock. We received the following order cancellation notice today. At least they figured out they did not have the item before they charged us.

Greetings from Amazon.com,

We're writing to inform you that your order xxx from Brookstone has been canceled because the item(s) you purchased were out of stock. Please return and place your order again at a later time.

Our sellers strive to minimize canceled orders. We're sorry for the inconvenience this has caused. In most cases, you pay for items when we ship them to you, so you won't be charged for items that are canceled. In some cases (e.g., you use a gift card or your debit card is processed as a PIN-less transaction), you may see a charge for a canceled item. If you are charged for a canceled item, we will refund you within 1-2 business days. If you have any questions regarding the cancelation of this order, please contact Brookstone.

If you're still interested in this item, please search for it again on Amazon.com.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion - For those thinking about offering a Marketplace, consider that you are at the mercy of the information provided by the Marketplace vendors, and their quality and behaviour is a reflection on you as the Marketplace provider.

This year for Christmas, for relatives that lived in other cities and provinces, I opted to buy their gifts online and have them sent directly to their homes. In the past, I would have bought the items locally and then had to take the double wrapped item (once with Christmas wrapping and a second time for mailing and return addresses and stamps) to the post office to send them on their merry way. Buying online is much easier. But not all e-retailers allow the shopper to distinguish an order purchased for oneself vs one purchased as a "gift". Since I regularly name names, the e-retailer in question here is Futureshop, the seller of electronics and appliances. I purchased a Kobo e-book reader for my niece, but all I could do in the checkout process was have it sent to her address. There was no option for a gift message (e.g. Merry Christmas and a belated Happy Birthday!). And as a regular purchaser from Futureshop, I know that all that was included with the item was a packing slip, which is probably not usable for an exchange (e.g. to exchange the "hot pink" I selected for "ice blue", or to upgrade/downgrade the edition). I can understand not necessarily providing gift wrap service, or allowing me to choose when the order is shipped (so that it arrives very close to Christmas instead of 3 weeks early as I take advantage of a sale), but the only way my niece would know it was from her Uncle was the presence of my name on the billing address.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion - Every e-retailing web site today needs to provide the shopper with the ability to indicate that an order is a "gift" and to provide the opportunity to include a "gift message". And upon knowing that an order is a "gift", an invoice/receipt should be automatically included that can be used for returns or exchanges.

Here's another pet peeve of mine when shopping online -- sites that aren't clear as to exactly when you're about to place an order.

Amazon.com is clear in this regard. After clicking "Proceed to Checkout" from the shopping cart, the shopper selects a shipping address, shipping speed, and payment information. At this point in the Amazon checkout process it is clear that the shopper will have the opportunity to see the order information before the order is placed. The shopper sees the message "You can review this order before it's final" along side both "Continue" buttons.

On Futureshop.ca, after clicking "Checkout" from the shopping cart, the shopper selects a shipping address, shipping type, and payment information. At this point in the Futureshop checkout process, it is unclear whether clicking "Submit" will place the order or give the shopper one more chance to verify the order details. The last step/page is titled "Summary" as per the four step process at the top, but it is not clear as to whether it is before or after placing the order.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion - Especially since there is a group of shoppers that are still wary and tentative when shopping online, be absolutely clear as to when in the checkout process the order is placed.

Marketplaces are great as they provide more fulfillment options to the shopper. Different vendors may have different business models and thus pricing can vary and shipping distance and options can vary as well. e.g. I might be able to find Product A from Vendor B who is closer to me and thus the shipping is faster and cheaper. But it is very frustrating when the same product exists more than once in the catalog, or when different formats of the same product exist separately and are not connected. e.g. If you're viewing the DVD version, the marketplace should make you aware that there is a Blu-Ray version available as well. Look at the two examples below from the Amazon Marketplace. The DVD and Blu-Ray SKUs exist separately in the catalog -- the Blu-Ray product page (Image 1) makes the shopper aware that there is a DVD version. The DVD product page (Image 2) does not make the shopper aware that there is a Blu-Ray version. I happened to find the DVD product page first and executed a separate search to find out whether the Blu-Ray version existed or not.

Image 1 - Blu-Ray product page

Image 2 - DVD product page

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion
In a marketplace, eliminate and combine duplicate products so that customers don't have to worry about whether they are aware of all of their options.

The World Wildlife Fund focuses on raising funds to save all types of wildlife on the planet, so I'm willing to overlook the absence of some e-commerce best practices. I did make a donation and selected my bucket of animals as a Christmas present for my son. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to talk about it! This largely one-page checkout displayed the cart for editing, and
allowed the entry of the shipping address, billing address, and payment
information, but did not provide a "summary" page before final
submission. Furthermore, as you can see from this screen capture, the World Wildlife Fund "cannot make any cancellations or changes to your order after it has been submitted". What !?! Not even through a Call Center?

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion

For peace of mind, retailers need to offer shoppers a final view of the order (what items are in the order, what is the billing and shipping address, what is the shipping method, and what are the associated charges) before the final submission of the order.

Boxing Day sales in Canada are a close second to Black Friday sales in the US in terms of a shopping frenzy. Each year during the online Boxing Day sales, I typically purchase a new portable external hard drive to backup the year's worth of images, video, and other personal data and store it in a fire-proof safe. Best Buy Canada has had perennial challenges keeping up with Boxing Day demand and their online waiting queue has been in place for several years. This year though I was surprised to see a difference in the e-mail I received about my purchase ($99.98) vs the online order details ($69.99). The pricing was wrong in the e-mail I received and I immediately went to check the online order details, which was correct. I'll have to double check actual charges on my credit card once the item ships.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion

Make sure to test order e-mails to make sure the amounts are correct. Shopper may receive multiple e-mails as the order is placed, shipping is confirmed, and payment is captured. If any of those e-mails are incorrect, the shopper may call the Call Center increasing your order handling costs.

I was reading my e-mail over lunch on my iPhone 5. I clicked on one particular message from Signals, and to my astonishment, it looked like I was reading it on a cell phone from 10 years ago. The following was the header and footer of the page. There were about two other pages of material in between equally "old school". I was not about to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to navigate a whole site looking like this.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion

More
and more people access their e-mail on their smartphones. Retailers
must test how their cross-channel experience (e-mail to smartphone
browser) looks and feels from the end user perspective.

Ratings & Reviews are must-haves
to aid online and offline shopping as shoppers rely on the advice and
first-hand experience of people they both know and don't know. Shoppers
may fully intend to buy in a brick-and-mortar store, but they want to
do their research online. And while they may trust the advice from
their social network the most, they most certainly want to see what
others have to say.

In my recent shopping, I came across two interesting facets of Ratings & Reviews.

First,
at FutureShop.ca, any registered or guest visitor can post a rating for a product without an
accompanying review. Should people be allowed to rate a product without
stating some form of justification or elaboration? In the example below, 79 people have rated the Sony headphones for an average rating of 4.3 out of 5, but only 8 people have left an accompanying review.

Second, Amazon.com allows shoppers to rate products on attributes, not just overall. And furthermore, Amazon allows shoppers to suggest new attributes upon which to provide ratings and reviews.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion: To make Ratings and Reviews more useful, make registered shoppers justify their rating. And its even better if reviews can be focused on a particular aspect of the product such as quality, comfort, durability, etc.

It's a new year and I've moved from IBM Software Services for WebSphere Commerce to the WebSphere Commerce Product Management team.

And with that move, I'm going to be more conscientious about my blog as "The Frustrated Shopper". I love to shop, which doesn't mean I buy expensive things, but that I love the thrill of the search and finding new things. But as a "power shopper", I am very much frustrated with some e-retailing sites and I will share those frustrations in my blog with the hope that other retailers can learn from these experiences and improve their online shopping experiences.

My first topic this year is "The Path to Purchase". i.e. Once you click "Checkout", most web sites don't want to distract you from completing the checkout process. Often times, I want to double check that I've got the right item in the cart, but I'm unable to click on the item to go back to the Product Details page. Or I might want to see if the item is available in another size or colour. Or I might want to perform a product comparison, or look at the related ratings and reviews, or videos. But a lot of sites, don't provide any links other than forwards or backwards in the checkout process. I understand that retailers want to put the "blinders" on you and focus your attention on checking out, but it's frustrating from a shopper point of view, when you want to make sure you have the item you want before checking out.

Now, here's what your page looks like when you're in the checkout flow. No links for product details, recently viewed items, recommendations, etc.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion - How about providing a link to the product details that pops up a window so that the shopper doesn't actually leave the checkout page? Or if pop-ups are a no-no, how about a Web 2.0/Ajax load and reveal on the checkout page. Allowing the shopper to be 100% confident about his proposed purchase should help encourage more sales, no?

I was demoing IBM's WebSphere Commerce's + Sterling Order Management's mobile experience for Shoppers and Sales Associates at NRF's Big Show this week. While there I took the opportunity to catch the musical Wicked on Broadway. I've now had the opportunity to see Wicked in Chicago, Rochester, Toronto, London, and New York. I was browsing their Wicked paraphernalia and it seemed like they offered some new and unique items. But, in no way did they indicate that any of the items in their item/price list was different or exclusive to this location. I assume that some portion of their audience are repeat customers and that they, like me, would like to know if there are any Wicked merchandise that is in some way different at this location. They could have missed out on a sale to one of their most loyal customers!

How hard is it to indicate that an item is new or unique? Here's an example of the same lack of information on Best Buy's site. At the highest category level, there is no "What's New" or "New Arrivals". Loyal customers who visit the site often want to buy things! Let them know what is new.

At the sub-category level, they are a little better. In the Drives & Storage category, they do have a "New Arrivals" sub-category.

And when the shopper opens up the "New Arrivals" category, each item is flagged as "New".

But when the shopper clicks on one of the items and brings up the Product Page, there is no indication that the item is "New". If the shopper gets to the Product Page via a search or a direct link, the fact that the item is "New" is no longer communicated to the shopper.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion - Give your shoppers a quick way to find new or unique items in your store/location. And be consistent in labeling the items as "New" or "Exclusive" in category listings, search results, product pages, etc. Anything less is not serving those customer segments that are itching to buy something new from you.

For those following along, my Monoprice order placed on Monday, January 20th, was finally delivered on Wednesday, January 29th. Recall that I paid for USPS Priority: 2-3 business days and it arrived 7 business days later. Retailers should be monitoring their fulfillment processes to make sure that orders get out quickly AND actually make it to the shopper as "promised". To add salt to the wound, I received a request today (February 3rd) to rate the products I ordered. The form has a way for me to provide feedback on each item I ordered, but no separate opportunity to provide feedback about the website/order capture process or the order fulfillment process.

Image 1

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion
Monitor order fulfillment to make sure carriers are meeting their SLA's and when they aren't let the customer know that you know it's late, and at least apologize. Amazon apologized for the last minute shopping last Christmas that UPS was unable to deliver on-time. In that case Amazon also offered "store credit" against future purchases. At a minimum, it's good customer service to let the customer know that you know the item was delivered late as opposed to just washing your hands of the order once it's in the hands of the shipping carrier. Successful fulfillment of an order is the start of convincing the customer to place their next order and builds on customer loyalty and trust.

I recently purchased an iPad 2 and Apple fulfilled the order by drop-shipping the piece parts direct from suppliers. My order consisted of the iPad 2 plus 4 accessories, and ended up being fulfilled in 4 separate shipments. The shipments came via UPS and Federal Express. With these carriers, you need to be at home to sign and receive the orders otherwise you may have to go to some regional shipping warehouse to pick it up. The regional UPS shipping warehouse for where I live is 30 minutes away! And if I had my order shipped to my hotel while travelling on business, I might have incurred charges to receive each order. I've been charged $7-10 dollars per package received at some hotels.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion - While fulfilling the shopper's order in multiple shipments may be the cheapest solution for the retailer, give consideration to the effect on the shopper in terms of her time and cost.

I have a perfect example to share today about e-retailing and the importance of the physical store. I recently purchased a couple blazers from Moores and one required alterations. I went to pick up the altered blazer today and when I tried it on, I noticed that there was a ripple on either side of the shoulder that I did not notice when I initially purchased the item. I tried to point out the deficiency in the blazer and the store assistant responded that it might be due to the hanger that it was on (it was the store provided hanger). I tried to point out that I didn't see the problem the other day and that the store assistant did not point out the problem. The store assistant's response was that someone else helped me the other day and that he couldn't comment. The store assistant offered to further alter the garment at a cost of $22. I was not happy.

In today's e-retailing environment, shoppers often use the online/mobile channel to avoid poor customer service. For garments that often need tailoring, it is hard to avoid going into the store to try the item on and getting measured for alterations. Some retailers are finding success with online build-to-order garments such as jeans and shirts after complete measurements are provided.

Back to my frustrating shopper experience -- what's even more sad about this story is that when I asked another store assistant who the store manager was, I was pointed to the individual I was already experiencing poor customer service from. I had no one to escalate my situation to so I looked up the Customer Service number on the company's website and talked to them on my mobile phone while still in the store. The Customer Service agent apologized for the poor customer service, asked me to pay for the alterations, and committed to sending me a gift certificate to cover the further alterations. Will I buy from this store again -- maybe, maybe not.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion - Physical stores need to provide exemplary customer service to meet the needs of those that need, or want, to come into the store. Storefront associates are ambassadors of the brand and every interaction either increases, reinforces, or decreases brand loyalty.

I recently booked some trips through Viator, an aggregator of travel tours worldwide. For some reason, only known to Viator themselves, once you select the number of travellers for one tour, you must use the same number of travellers for all other tours added to the same order. If you wish to book one tour for 2 people, and another tour for just 1 of the people, you have to place them as separate orders.

Here's a screen capture of the way the tour page looks before selecting the number of travelers.

Here's a screen capture of the way the tour page looks after you have added a tour to the shopping cart with a set number of travelers.

You can't change the number of travelers anymore. Now, Viator does do a good job of providing a link with an explanation.

A business process that makes sense internally to a retailer doesn't necessarily make sense to shoppers. And sometimes business processes can get in the way of sales. If I have a one-time use promotion code, but want to book tours for different numbers of travelers, then I can only use it once and the rest would be booked without the benefit of the discount.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion - Retailers need to look at their business processes from a shopper perspective and try to change it to be as convenient and understandable as possible to maximize conversion.

Sellers should always display full shipping addresses to the shopper. A small omitted piece of information in a shipping address can mean the difference between a successful delivery and a return to sender. I love Monoprice.com, where I buy my electronic cables. They have a wonderful ultra slim HDMI cable that I purchased recently. However, they could stand to follow my advice and always show all shipping address information. In the first part of the Shipping step of checkout (Image 1), they have you enter a Shipping Address and they show you all of the information that you enter in. In the second part of the Shipping step of checkout (Image 2), they show you the address you selected and you choose a shipping method -- however, they do not show you the entire address (note the missing #950). The question that arises is whether the shipping address on the actual package will look like what was entered in Image 1 or what is displayed in Image 2. And that difference could mean a return to sender and an unsuccessful delivery.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion
All details of a shipping address should be displayed during the checkout process so that the shopper can help verify that the address is correct and that it has the maximum chance to make it to the right place.

Back to Monoprice.com, which I spoke about last time regarding shipping addresses. During that purchase, I chose USPS Priority: 2-3 Business Days. I purchased my Redmere HDMI cable on Monday, January 20th, and according to Monoprice.com, it was shipped later that day on Monday, January 20th. I thought I was in good shape as there were 4 shipping business days before the weekend, when I was going to pick up the item at my UPS mailbox. Unfortunately, it did not arrive. And as I write this blog posting, USPS shows that it still has not arrived, on the 5th business day after it was shipped. I chatted with customer service on the Monoprice.com site and they said they had to wait 7 days before they could open a ticket with USPS to find out where the package was. So, my 2-3 Business Days was really just an estimate and it could take up to 7 days! Amazon Prime regularly delivers packages to my UPS mailbox in 2 days or less. As a customer, I am not happy that I paid for expedited shipping and I did not get expedited service.

Image 1 - 2-3 Business Day Shipping Option

Image 2 - Order History showing Ship Date

Image 3 - Shipping Status from USPS as of Monday, January 27th

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion
Indicate where shipping times are guaranteed and where they are only estimates. Customer loyalty and trust are severely affected by packages arriving late.

I need to share another extraordinary commerce transaction I experienced today. I have a green sling bag purchased from Mountain Equipment Co-op. A buckle had broke and it no longer stays on my back. I intended to purchase a replacement, but alas, they no longer carry it in the same size or colour. I was going to settle for a smaller one in a different colour. I had my daughter with me and she commented at the cash register to the store associate that my bag's buckle had broke. Now this was after I had paid for the item and while it was being bagged. What astonished me was that the store associate said "well, if that is all that's wrong, we can fix that". She proceeded to get a replacement part from a back room, removed my existing buckle with this wicked looking pliers, and put the new one on. Voila, the bag was fixed! She then asked if I wanted a refund and with my confirmation she processed it without complaint.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion
Most retailers customers fall into the 80/20 rule, where 20% of their overall customers result in 80% of their overall sales. This 20% is their most loyal and most frequent customers. The key to improving the business is moving customers from the 80% casual and uncommitted to the 20% dedicated. It is moments like these where the store associate exemplifies the brand's image and value that matter to the customer, and slowly nudges the shopper from one category to the next. This moment mattered today to the point that I'm sharing it with my readers today! Retailers need to foster more of these moments and make every encounter with the customer matter in the customer's eyes.

With this entry, I want to take a break from pointing out possible improvements and acknowledge one particular retailer that positively surprised me in a recent transaction. With the popularity of Disney's Frozen and the "Let It Go" song, I made a purchase of sheet music from musicnotes.com for my daughter. Shortly thereafter, I received an e-mail with an incentive to update my preferences in exchange for a $6 coupon, a promise of a gift on my birthday every year, and being kept "in the loop regarding current sales and promotions ..., and product announcements". This was enough incentive for me to complete my preferences, which should benefit my search & browse experience in the future and help musicnotes.com to better target/personalize content -- win/win!

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion
Sellers should consider how they are building out their customer profiles and preferences and strongly consider what incentive they are offering in order to get that information. The ability to target and personalize the customer experience to improve the frequency of orders and average order size is surely worth a small, but compelling, incentive.

I recently made a purchase from Gentle Giant Ltd who "designs, develops, and manufactures three-dimensional representations of beloved characters from a variety of franchise properties". I ordered two maquettes based on Jeffrey Brown’s "Darth Vader’s Little Princess" and "Darth Vader and Son".After placing an order on May 19th, I later received an e-mail with a tracking number on May 21st. I actually received the item on May 29th, and then for some unknown reason received a "Your order has shipped ..." e-mail arrived on May 31st. The first thing that went through my mind was whether I accidentally placed a second order. While I like the maquettes very much and I expect them to be in high demand (for resale value), they were relatively expensive and I didn't really want a second set. I went back through all the e-mails I received to compare order numbers and confirmed that all of the e-mails referenced the same order so I believe the e-mail sent on May 31st was in error, or very, very late.

E-mail received on May 21st with a Track Number.

E-mail received on May 31st announcing that my order had shipped.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion

Fulfillment has been shown to have a major impact on customer loyalty and repeat business. When making a purchase, sellers need to set expectations with buyers so that they know what to expect during the fulfillment phase of the purchase process. Ideally, the seller should communicate when the item is expected to ship and approximately when it should arrive. If the buyer chooses expedited shipping, then the "approximate" should be a committed date (including any internal time required to ready the package for shipping). e.g. Overnight, 1 Day, 2 Day -- those are fulfillment promises. Allow buyers to focus on the anticipation of receiving their goods and don't unnecessarily worry them along the way.

I thought misleading advertising was a thing of the past with customers being more savvy and intelligent these days. But I found this ad for "half off sushi" from WagJag, a daily deals site. It offers $7 for $15 towards all-you-can-eat dinner, which looks like a savings of 53%. Nowhere in "The Deal" or the "Fine Print" does it actually say how much the actual dinner costs. One would reasonably think that dinner costs $15, but Sushi Hour's website lists dinner costing $20.99 (or $22.99 on Friday and Saturday). So now this deal is $7 towards $22.99 on Friday and Saturday, for a savings of only 30% (and tax and tip are on top of that!).

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion:

Don't mislead customers. The process of building trust and loyalty is a long one, where you have to build layer upon layer via transaction after transaction. And it can come undone quickly with one attempt to "pull a fast one". And in today's world of social commentary, it can bring unwanted attention.

Cross-channel discounts help to drive traffic from one channel to the next. It's certainly a lot easier to place an order for a cake online and then simply pick it up prior to the celebratory event. We celebrated my son's 6th birthday a couple weeks ago and I wanted to place an order for an ice cream cake online from Marble Slab Creamery. I had a paper coupon as part of their 2013 Christmas set of coupons that was good during 2014. The coupons are great as they have 2-for-1's, Free Cones, and various other discounts such as a half-price ice cream cake. I entered the discount code as printed on the coupon and I was then presented with this order summary before submitting the order.

While I am a frequent and somewhat loyal customer, by not showing me the price after the discount, this did cause me to pause and consider the situation. Do I trust Marble Slab Creamery to honor the coupon I entered in, or will I have an issue when picking up the cake where for some reason they do not accept it. Who wants to argue with the store associate when 12 kids are waiting to eat cake? I actually did end up going into the store and placing the order directly, where they accepted the printed coupon fine.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion
Build trust and loyalty with your shoppers by showing them prices that include all appropriate discounts. Do not give your customers any reason to hesitate, wonder, or fear that they won't get their discount.

Most shoppers are price sensitive and looking for good deals. If a price changes on a website and no one is notified, was the price change effective? There are various ways that retailers inform shoppers of price changes -- physical flyers, digital flyers, promotional e-mails, tweets, etc.. But most of these forms are general notices meant for the general public. Even promotional e-mails are probably formulated for different customer segments.

Does your favourite retailer communicate differently if prices have changed for items in the shopping cart, or saved for later, or in a wish list? When Amazon customers view their cart, Amazon looks for any price changes in their cart or items saved for later, and alerts them that prices have changed. This is a great way to see that there are discounts available now.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion:

Understand which customer segments are more price sensitive than others and help them to understand when prices change on items. This suggestion is not to create a discount specifically for that shopper, but to inform that shopper of a price change that has been already made in general. If a price changes on a website and an interested customer is notified of the change, there is a better than good chance that notification will result in a sale!

My daughter has been waiting most of the year for The Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan to be released. I saw the e-mail from Indigo.ca yesterday on the day it was released and clicked through to see the price of $14.43.

We decided to pick it up after school today. Much to my dismay, the store would not honour the online price saying that the online store was a separate entity that didn't have the costs associated with the physical store chain. Furthermore, they said "you're more than welcome to order it online". Very grudgingly I completed the purchase at $17.99 (25% more than the online price) as I had my daughter standing next to me eagerly waiting to start reading it on the way home.

Let's take a look at what the omni-channel experience is like from Indigo, the last remaining national chain of physical bookstores in Canada. Indigo's mission statement from their website is "to provide our customers with the most inspiring retail and digital environments in the world for books and life-enriching products and experiences. " The Indigo site does allow you to search for physical store locations and it will display the inventory quantity of a book in a particular store. Indigo does not allow a shopper to Buy Online Pick-up in Store (even though they may have hundreds of copies in the store), neither do they allow you to Buy Online Ship-to-Store to save on shipping costs. And as mentioned, their stores will not honour the online price. That "lowest price*" tag beside the $14.43 on the product page leads to the following comment -- "When you purchase items online, we ship directly from our warehouse to you. That means we can bypass the significant costs associated with maintaining the store experience you love and pass those savings on to you. In-store, you’ll find our price will match or be lower than the publisher’s list price." Who buys any book at list price these days? Time will tell if shoppers will accept this fractured omni-channel experience or whether they will switch to Amazon or eBay.

Frustrated Shopper Suggestion:

Shoppers want a consistent omni-channel experience that starts with consistent pricing across channels. Furthermore, shoppers want more flexible options for fulfillment such as Buy Online Pickup in Store. Those retailers that continue to resist providing an omni-channel experience may find their shoppers taking their purchases elsewhere.